The case for the Criminalisation of the Purchase of Sex Bill

On the 29 May I published the results of the consultation for my proposed Bill on the criminalisation of the purchase of sex. The respondents were overwhelmingly, 80 per cent, in favour of this Bill. Since its publication I have been continually attacked by those against the Bill who have claimed that I have misrepresented the breadth of support. In fact they have presented a number of falsehoods about the Bill via a number of platforms including this one. I find myself constantly defending my position against unfounded allegations and yet no-one has properly questioned the assertions made by the "Sex Workers’ Lobby". I find this baffling and therefore would like to take the opportunity to address their arguments.

I recently received this from an exited prostitute:

The only way to describe my experience was HELL it’s like you are selling your soul over to the devil when you get into prostitution, the devils being…… , your freedom gets taken away completely, you automatically become a dolly money making machine for them and while working for…… you were reminded every day that you’re worthless and couldn't do better in life apart from prostitution….people are not aware of what happens behind closed doors in the brothel ....the minute you walk in you are scared for life ...it’s like being raped 10 times a day and pimps telling you its ok ??? You lose everything dignity, Identity, respect and happiness.

This is by no means a one off case but the daily reality for many prostitutes. With this knowledge I am expected to turn a blind eye in order that those who profit from and cause this misery can continue their activity unrestrained. I cannot.

The current laws surrounding prostitution penalise women and only deal with public nuisance – none of them protect those who are prostituted. The Bill I propose is for the criminalisation of the purchase of sex which aims to redress this imbalance in our current laws. In no other circumstance does our law criminalise the victim but not the perpetrator! The purpose of this legislation would be to decrease demand and thereby begin to tackle an industry that preys on vulnerable people.

My consultation proved that a wide range of society agrees with me, including NHS Scotland, many Violence Against Women partnerships and organisations that provide support to working prostitutes. I do not just have support from feminist groups and religious organisations as my opponents have suggested. This is just one of many false allegations I have had to defend against, such as the suggestion that I have ignored the views of those who work and have worked in prostitution. This is again not true; the pro-lobby have simply ignored the supportive responses I received from women that have exited prostitution. Indeed, I have also met with a wide range of people including working prostitutes and other individuals involved with support organisations.

There has been little scrutiny of the position put forward by the "Sex Workers’ Lobby". In particular, this lobby has made two adamant petitions, one for decriminalisation or legislation for the industry and the other that said industry should be allowed to regulate itself. Their argument for self-regulation is that they understand the industry best and are therefore best equipped to tackle abuses. There is no evidence to support this argument as all reports indicate that abuse is rampant within the industry. They suggest that "clients" are best placed to report abuse. However these clients have little concern for prostitutes. We would need evidence to demonstrate that they are reporting instances of trafficking in great numbers and where is it? Legislation needs to be implemented that protects vulnerable people against organisations and individuals that profit from them. No industry can successfully self-regulate because it is in its interest to make profits.

However, I would also like to challenge the notion that decriminalisation or legislation would protect vulnerable people being abused in this industry. The oft-cited example is New Zealand which has decriminalised all aspects of the sex industry. There are calls to introduce this model here. However, social policy cannot be looked at in isolation and New Zealand exists in a very different context to us. Their immigration polices help to ensure that people who enter the country are protected through a buddy scheme. The "Sex Workers’ Lobby" rarely acknowledges the examples closer to home, such as the Netherlands and Germany, which have tried less successfully to legalise and regulate the industry. It simply has not worked; Amsterdam has acknowledged that there is an huge illegal market and that women are still being abused. Looking at the UNODC report on trafficking it is clear that The Netherlands is seen as a more attractive destination than Sweden. The most conservative estimate is that 8 per cent out of the entire industry is comprised of trafficked individuals - that is more than 1,000 people, but it could be many more. This does not take into account the huge number of people coerced into the industry due to poverty. There is a similar story in Germany, a recent documentary into the industry revealed that decriminalisation has increased demand and actually made sex cheaper. The brothel owners are the people benefiting from this, not the prostitutes.

It has been claimed that Human Rights Groups and the UN have called for the decriminalisation of prostitution and that my Bill is going against them. This again is not the full story. My Bill is not criminalising the women (and men) being prostituted, but rather the clients that are fuelling the industry. The organisations quoted state that they are against the increased criminalisation of victims of this industry - so am I!

I do not claim that my Bill would be a silver bullet in tackling the abuse of prostitution. It needs to be coupled with greater education, more exit services and initiatives that help to tackle the vast inequalities that still remain in our society that coerce people into prostitution. It is clear to me that dealing with demand will help. The "Sex Workers’ Lobby’s" arguments against my Bill need to be scrutinised and we should ask how their arguments are actually going to help protect those vulnerable people who are being repeatedly abused on a daily basis. Is it in their financial interest that this abuse continues?

Rhoda Grant is the Labour Member of the Scottish Parliament for the Highlands and Islands

Europe’s last Blairite: Can Manuel Valls win the French presidency?

The election of François Hollande as the president of France in 2012 coincided with the high-water mark of Ed Miliband’s leadership of the Labour Party. That year, Labour posted its best local election results in 17 years, gaining 823 councillors and winning control of 32 councils in a performance that has not yet been surpassed or equalled.

Gazing across the Channel, the Milibandites were given hope. Hollande showed that a wonkish career politician could triumph over a charismatic centre-right incumbent.

The UK’s shattered Blairites looked to a different star rising in French politics: Manuel Valls. At the time of Hollande’s victory, Valls was the mayor of Évry, a small suburb of Paris, where he made a name for himself by campaigning against halal supermarkets.

His father, Xavier, was a Spanish painter and his mother, Luisangela, was Swiss-Italian. They met and married in Paris, and Valls was born in Barcelona while the couple were on holiday.

In 2009 Valls urged the Parti Socialiste (PS) to drop the adjective “socialist” from its name, and he ran for the presidential nomination two years later on what he described as a Blairiste platform. This included scrapping the 35-hour working week, which hardly applies outside of big business and the public sector but carries symbolic weight for the French left. Valls’s programme found few supporters and he came fifth in a field of six, with just 6 per cent of the vote.

Yet this was enough to earn him the post of interior minister under Hollande. While Valls’s boss quickly fell from favour – within six months Hollande’s approval ratings had dropped to 36 per cent, thanks to a budget that combined tax rises with deep spending cuts – his own popularity soared.

He may have run as an heir to Blair but his popularity in France benefited from a series of remarks that were closer in tone to Ukip’s Nigel Farage. When he said that most Romany gypsies should be sent “back to the borders”, he was condemned by both his activists and Amnesty International. Yet it also boosted his approval ratings.

One of the facets of French politics that reliably confuse outsiders is how anti-Islamic sentiment is common across the left-right divide. Direct comparisons with the ideological terrain of Westminster politics are often unhelpful. For instance, Valls supported the attempt to ban the burkini, saying in August, “Marianne [the French symbol] has a naked breast because she is feeding the people! She is not veiled, because she is free! That is the republic!”

By the spring of 2014, he was still frequently topping the charts – at least in terms of personal appeal. A survey for French Elle found that 20 per cent of women would like to have “a torrid affair” with the lantern-jawed minister, something that pleased his second wife, Anne Gravoin, who pronounced herself “delighted” with the poll. (She married Valls in 2010. He also has four children by his first wife, Nathalie Soulié.)

Yet it was a chilly time for the French left, which was sharply repudiated in municipal elections, losing 155 towns. Hollande sacked his incumbent prime minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, and appointed Valls in his place. He hoped, perhaps, that some of Valls’s popularity would rub off on to him.

And perhaps Valls, a student of “Third Way” politics, hoped that he could emulate the success of Bill Clinton, who turned sharply to the right following Democratic losses in the US 1994 midterm elections and won a great victory in 1996. Under Valls’s premiership, Hollande’s administration swung right, implementing tough policies on law and order and pursuing supply-side reforms in an attempt to revive the French economy. Neither the economic recovery, nor the great victory, emerged.

With the date of the next presidential election set for 2017, Hollande was in trouble. His approval ratings were terrible and he faced a challenge from his former minister Arnaud Montebourg, who resigned from the government over its rightward turn in 2014.

Then, on 27 November, Prime Minister Valls suggested in an interview that he would challenge the incumbent president in the PS primary. After this, Hollande knew that his chances of victory were almost non-existent.

On 1 December, Hollande became the first incumbent French president ever to announce that he would not run for a second term, leaving Valls free to announce his bid. He duly stood down as prime minister on 5 December.

Under the French system, unless a single candidate can secure more than half of the vote in the first round of the presidential election, the top two candidates face a run-off. The current polls rate Marine Le Pen of the Front National as the favourite to win the first round, but she is expected to lose the second.

Few expect a PS candidate to make the run-off. So Hollande’s decision to drop out of his party’s primary turns that contest into an internal struggle for dominance rather than a choice of potential leader for France. The deeper question is: who will rebuild the party from the wreckage?

So although Valls has the highest international profile of the left’s candidates, no one should rule out a repeat of his crushing defeat in 2011.

He once hoped to strike a Blairite bargain with the left: victory in exchange for heresy. Because of the wasting effect of his years in Hollande’s government, however, he now offers only heresy. It would not be a surprise if the Socialists preferred the purity of Arnaud Montebourg.

Stephen Bush is special correspondent at the New Statesman. His daily briefing, Morning Call, provides a quick and essential guide to British politics.